Oil Prices Decline During Week, But Supply Concerns Linger

The price of crude oil closed at $64.08 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange Friday, down 5.2% from post-storm highs the week before, but analysts were still concerned about future supplies, Bloomberg News reported.

The storm damaged some U.S. oil production facilities in the Gulf of Mexico that companies and analysts said will not fully recover until 2006 after being damaged by Hurricane Katrina, Bloomberg reported.

Royal Dutch Shell Plc said that output on its Mars field, which accounts from as much as 15% of U.S. oil production in the region, may not resume full output until 2006, Bloomberg reported.

The International Energy Agency said that it will take longer to recover from Katrina than it did from 2004’s Hurricane Ivan, Bloomberg reported. Analysts told Bloomberg that Ivan caused production disruptions in the Gulf of Mexico for anywhere from six to nine months.